No. 45 - FUF Loves It Here

ddavelarsen

ddavelarsen

Joined
Dec 7, 2000
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Ever had one of those projects that just fights you every step of the way? Man, this was one! My biggest mistake was changing "the way I have always done it." Usually I always began the taper behind the bolsters; on this one I decided to begin the taper at the plunge, which sounds much more elegant to me. Dumb one. Dumb two was I got so excited about tapering this baby that I did it before I drilled any holes...you know what to expect from that. Since this is a repro of my first knife I wanted to go "all out" on it so I also ground in a good distal taper - that was the only good thing about this knife! The only thing that worked out like I planned.

The beautiful damascus is by my friend Reg Ellery. (Sorry I ruined your beautiful billet, buddy.) I made my own mosaic pins and they suck; and it'll be a while before I think I can shape them to fit the contours of stag again, too. The scales are Imistag from TKS, which is just jigged bone with some kind of filler in the marrow space that I had to super glue back in on both scales...never again. But the clincher came when I was grinding off the overhanging scale and bolsters along the spine and discovered...the bolsters are out of alignment! AAAaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!! :rolleyes: The FUF is laughing her ass off! I had worried myself silly getting the lower part to match (even had it mostly finished before I put the bolsers on) and just plain spaced out thinking about the top. You just gotta hate it when you do dumb stuff you would never have done on your first knife!

And of course, this is the one I warped and had to re heat treat etc... The nice part of it is my wife finally gets her garden knife! :D And of course, this one does feel almost as good in the hand as that first one did oh so many moons ago...

It's 11" overall, 6" blade with stainless bolsters. The sheath has no belt loop, the cords are to tie it into my wife's garden tool bucket. A custom sheath! The knife fits it nicely and sits deep inside it. That was gratifying. But one final note: As I was giving that final wipe down and admirin, it bit me! :eek:

Dave
 

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Well Dave, at least its not a FUBAR! It's a very well made nice looking knife. The bolster thing is something that would happen to me. Heck, make another repro No. 1! Did you make the sheath? It's nice!
 
Yeah John, we can fix it all right... Right into the lake! Seriously, all I could do is grind the handle off and start over, and rather than that I'm going to make another one - in about 12 more years! :rolleyes:

Dave
 
Dave if our Ladies didn't test us so much me wouldn't love them like we do..:D ;) :D

The knife still looks really nice and everything is in order as it should be.Just the one little mistake.Heck we all do things like this and have to make the decision to either scrap the knife or try and fix it.If the wife likes it then just move on to the next one and leave the Devil blade alone...I also get these every so often and have to fight with the knife from the start to finish.Just don't give in and let the steel or anyother part of the knife beat you.If you know what you did wrong then you learned your lesson,That is if you don't make the same mistake again..
When I get one I make mistakes on,they go to family and friends that want a knife anyway and they don't see the goofs anyway,most will be cherished by them.
Have a good day and stay away fro the Devil knife and shop for a day then go try something else and you will see that it will go better next time.
Bruce
 
Geeeze, I wish my FU's looked that nice. All of my ooops's end up in two pieces.:rolleyes: :) I must be doing something wrong.
 
Y'all are too kind! :D Laredo, this sucker should have been in pieces! Bruce I shouldn't admit this but this is the third time I've done this... But never again, you can bank on that.

Dave
 
Thank you very very much for keeping the FUF occupied for awhile. She had been hounding me for the last couple weeks, fouling up everything I touched. In the last week I've finally been back to my normal bad luck as opposed to downright terrible luck.
Please keep the FUF in your neck of the woods, you seem to handle her much better than me. That knife looks mighty nice other than the minor thing on the bolsters, and my head is just now healing from my last run in with her :D
 
Hi Dave,
Ever consider making it your trademark??? Kinda like the Loveless bolt handle???
Enjoy, Ken
PS: Ever get your shop layout flipped?
 
Ken you can probably guess I'd rather be making knives than hauling my shop out and putting it back right... I'm impressed you remember that! Makes me feel good you do, and ashamed I'm so lazy. :D Trademark?! Man let's hope not! :D That sends shivers all up and down me...

Matt, for your sake I hope the witch is fully occupied somewhere, but I think (I'm praying) she got bored with me. ;) Maybe she'll go hang out with some stained glass people or something for a while. We'll know soon enough, anyway. Started on a couple easy tantos that are going okay so far...knocking wood.

Dave
 
Hmmm....I'm going to go reinforce the perimeter and load my shotgun. The wind is coming outta the southwest so you east coast guys better shut the windows, you might bein for some FUF dust ;)
 
Hey Dave I missed this post.

I just got my bonus 60 hours for the net.

I had some good news another WA maker is moving to New Zealand and he is still deciding where he is going to leave his rolling mill. It looks like my place. First job is to make you another billet.

That heat treat warp. I saw a bundle of that last weekend at the knife course. 1 warped so bad it could not be pulled back.

Sorry I missed this post.

I down loaded the new image for my collection. It is still a great looking knife. Way too good for a garden knife but Jeanie deserves it.
 
Jeanie loves it and it's going to get its first workout this weekend. It'll be nice to see how well it performs.

Looking forward to more of your beautiful damascus! Sean (son in law) is very jealous of Jeanie, I'm going to have to make him one soon. He'll use it too! :)

Dave
 
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